Jackie Gendel: Sidelong Glances

Inman Gallery is pleased to present Sidelong Glances, a solo exhibition of works on paper made by Jackie Gendel across the span of the last decade, from 2014 to 2023. An artists’ reception will take place Friday, March 10, from 6–8pm. An artist talk between Gendel and Edwin Smalling, owner of Basket Books and Art in Houston, will take place the following day, Saturday March 11 at 1pm. This show is on view concurrently with Erika Blumenfeld: Tracing Luminaries from March 10 – April 29, 2023. 

Gendel paints colorful, narrative compositions that blur the distinction between figuration and abstraction in their rendering of people and cinematic spaces. Figures – women in particular – take center stage in Gendel’s work, unfolding within dynamic scenes with moving bodies in changing spaces. Embracing a fluid approach to her work, Gendel has commented how she develops “scenes, characters and situations through deliberate figuration, intuitive mark making, color and chance procedures,” often painting over works, or creating the same image in different colors and sizes to subvert the singular image. This procedural evolution mirrors the evolving identities of the characters she paints, allowing a narrative to continue without a predetermined or fixed destination. In doing so, Gendel’s practice quite literally creates a moving image, which skillfully parallels the theatrical, even cinematic, nature of the paintings themselves.

Gendel’s compositions, like her painterly process, are highly attuned to the slippery relationship between space, time, and motion. Embracing experimentation and loss of control, her works show the ways marks can subtly and dramatically shift unfolding narratives and morph into expressive characters. “In this way,” Gendel writes, “painting and drawing introduce me to my subject.”